


WW2 Evacuee AU

by RoyalFunky



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Boys are evacuees, Diapers, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Sorry, Severe Historical Innaccuracies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 02:53:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7995925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoyalFunky/pseuds/RoyalFunky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ll five boys are evacuees from London in 1939. Niall's mam didn't have enough ration coupons to buy clothes or food for her baby, so she sent him away to be looked after, where he was thoroughly coddled, tucked under shawls and cared for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	WW2 Evacuee AU

On a cold bleak day in the October of 1939, I encouraged the horse to the top of the steep hill, and fastened his reins to the fence. An old man watched as I made my way down to the station. On the platform, several young boys huddled for warmth by the conveniences with their school teacher instructing them to be polite. One looked so scared, he looked as though he were about to soil his trousers. The others huddled in around him, giving him soothing words and comforting gestures. When I made my way down the path, I approached their school teacher.

“I think these may be my mother’s refugees. Are these them?” I asked as I passed her the list. She nodded curtly, and snapped at the boys to stand in a line.  
“Are you sure your mother wants all five of them?” she asked me. The pale, blonde and extremely scared boy looked at me as if I were going to leave him behind on the platform.   
“Of course I’m sure. We’ve beds and chamber pots enough for them, so why not?” I asked her. “The cart’s just up the top of the hill, Miss. I’ll introduce myself properly when we get there. The house isn’t far from here.” I told her. I motioned for the boys to follow me. They all did, in a single file line, and four got into the cart whilst I gathered the blonde one in my shawl. His shirt was thin, and he had no jumper, no clothing suitable for this weather, so he sat up front with me, whilst I held him gently and steered the cart up the rambling track to the house. I made it my mission to coddle him and look after him whilst he was here. The poor boy. When we got to the house, I took them into the kitchen, my domain, where it was warm, and sat them all down around the table, and introduced myself to them, and they introduced themselves to me. The blonde boy, Niall, he sat by my side right through dinner, being fed morsels of food from my plate. It was obvious he didn’t get enough food at home. Then there was Liam, a shy boy who was very kind and generous, and revealed he had shared his sandwiches with Niall at lunch time as Niall hadn’t got any. His mother hadn’t had the ration coupons to send him with anything. The next boy to have his star turn was a little show off named Harry. He seemed kind enough, but he was awfully loud and liked to shout. After this came the quietest lad I have ever seen. His name was Zayn, he was from Bradford and he hardly said a word, besides his name, age and his pleases and thankyous. And finally, there was Louis. Louis was about as loud and flamboyant as it is possible for a fourteen year old to be. He was loud, and the rest of them were particularly in awe of it. 

After dinner, I made them have a bath, and scrub the soot out of their skin. Niall went first, and I cleaned his knees and elbows and under his fingernails and behind his ears, every place that my mother would check, and paddle the boys if they weren’t clean. 

Shivering in front of the hearth, when each boy was clean, I trailed them up to their bedroom. The each had a comfy feather bed, with sheets and a lambs’ wool blanket, and a pair of clean pyjamas. They each had a terry cloth nappy, thick and encompassing, but soft and warm, and by the bed each boy had a plain porcelain chamber pot. 

They all protested, of course they did, but once they were in bed, they were completely fine, and they drifted off to sleep like good little children, leaving me to tip the chamber pots out of the window and rinse them in the standpipe. The blackout boards had already been put up, and by the time I came around with a candle, all the lads were asleep, aside from one. The little blonde one was defiantly awake, and although he was awake, he had his eyes squeezed closed. When I was sure they were all asleep aside from him, I carried him away into the kitchen, where I heated milk on the stove and wrapped him in my shawl to keep his skinny body warm. 

Still wrapped in the shawl I sat down in front of the fire, warming his toes whilst he drank his milk, and slowly, after a while, he began to talk. Niall smiled up at me.   
“I… I didn’t want to go to sleep because I feel homesick, and the war gives me nightmares.” He murmured. “I want my Mam, I miss her. We don’t have much space at home… Just the one room and we only have one bed. She likes to keep me close, she says, just in case someone comes to find me. I think she means my dad, he’s in Ireland. But… I miss Ireland too.” He said, his face pressed into my shoulder. “I don’t miss my dad. My dad screamed and drank and hit me…” he mumbled. “But I miss Ireland. I miss the hills and the rolling fields and eating potatoes with every meal to flesh it out, and if I felt sicky, only potatoes, mashed with a little butter and salt to keep my strength up.” he continued. I kept nodding, remembering every detail. I put Niall’s cup down on the table. 

“Would you like to bunk with me tonight? I know I’m not your Mam, but, I can still cuddle you.” I said. Niall nodded, and took my hand. In his blue and white striped pyjamas, and me in my nightie, we went up the stairs and into my room, where we both cuddled down under the soft blankets and sheets. I lit the fire in the hearth, and showed Niall where my chamber pot was, and not to be ashamed if he wet the bed. I knew at least a couple of them would, because they were away from home, as homesick as anything, and likely to. Wrapped in my shawl, we drifted off to sleep. 

When the morning light drifted through the blackout boards, I removed them and shook Niall awake. It was six thirty. He stuck close, using the chamber pot the moment he got out of bed, and carefully mumbling to me that he’d wet his nappy. I went to fetch another, and pinned it onto him. Today would be a sleeping day anyway. I went downstairs to the kitchen and began to cook, Niall by my side, even at the stove. He warmed his fingers over the oven whilst I started the porridge, and since today was baking day, I began to pull flour and yeast out to make bread, and strawberry jam and sugar to make a cake with. We had a plentiful supply of everything, even sugar and fruit, and I smiled. The boys wouldn’t get hearty food such as this at home. While the porridge was cooking, I made bread dough, making sure we had at least enough for four loaves, and made the cake mix, before doling out to Niall his portion of porridge with jam, a special treat. I put each of the other boys’ on a tray and put it in the dumb waiter, taking it upstairs to the boys’ room. I gave each boy a tray, bowl and spoon, and gave each one a hearty bowl of porridge. As I passed to Liam, who smiled delightedly that he was able to have butter and salt on his porridge, looked at Niall’s bed worriedly.  
“He’s down in the kitchen with me, Liam. He couldn’t sleep last night and he came in with me.” I said, and the other boys accepted it. It was fair dos. Niall was younger than them, and he was so small and scared.

I carried each used chamber pot out in turn, and emptied them out of the window, before taking them to rinse out. When I went out to the privy in the garden, Niall said he needed to go too, so I helped him use it, as he was used to at least a flushable one in his block of housing, even if him and his mam shared their chamber pot. With ours, you had to put water into a jug out of the standpipe and tip it down the loo. I waited just outside, but entered when I heard a scream. Niall had seen a spider scuttle across the seat, which probably made him glad he was only going for a wee. I also knew that I was going to have problems getting him to go to the privy now, even to wee. I would probably be feeding him paraffin to get him to go. 

When he was finally finished, he came back inside and settled in his own bed, pulling the covers up. I checked each boy’s nappy and changed the wet ones. When I had finished baking bread, I lay the loaves and cakes and pies out on the table, before setting about on lunch. It was nettle soup, made with nettles fresh from the bottom of the garden, picked that morning whilst I was baking. When I had cooked it and strained it, so there weren’t any nettle leaves in it, I did the same with it as I had done the porridge, and took it upstairs. I took my mending up there with me, and since all of the boys’ clothes were being washed, I darned their socks as I talked to them. Niall was soon in my lap, under my shawl, and fast asleep. When it was time to prepare dinner, I slid Niall into Liam’s waiting arms, who put him in his own bed, and I went downstairs, before Liam joined me, looking distinctly uncomfortable. As I tied my pinnie on, I smiled.   
“Something the matter, Li?” I asked him.   
“C-could you tell me where the privy is please? S-something I can’t do in my pot.” He mumbled, and I led him out, filling two heavy jugs from the standpipe whilst I waited, and flushed it down. Liam looked relieved, and came and sat on one of the kitchen chairs. I pulled it close to the oven, smiling as I said  
“Warm your tootsies on that. Can’t have cold toes in bed, can we?” I asked with a laugh as I cooked up a rabbit stew. Freshly shot, skinned and gutted, the only thing I could think about the rabbit was how well its fur would line a pair of gloves. To me, the only animals which were pets were cats, and even then, if times were hard enough, we might eat them.

When I was finally finished with dinner, I called the other four sleepy boys down to dinner, and sat them around the table. Liam was the first to speak.  
“Thank you for taking us in…” he murmured. “When my sisters were taken by an older couple, I cried…” he mumbled. “I didn’t want to be alone, and I thought Miss Harlington was going to leave me alone on the platform, but when the other boys were left, and Miss kept mumbling ‘where is she?’ I knew we were going to come to someone who would take care of us.” He smiled. “Even little Niall knew it. But of course, he was so cold, and we all miss our mothers, and I miss my sisters, and so do Louis and Zayn and Harry.” he said. “I was so glad, I knew the moment you took Niall under your shawl that you were going to take care of him, and all of us.” He said. He nearly wilted when he saw the cake, and they gorged themselves before bed, and went up quite sleepily. Niall looked at me imploringly. I knew he wanted his milk and his cuddle, even though each boy had his own tin mug of milk after he washed his hands and face in the kitchen, and got sent soundly to bed. 

This continued for a long time. 

Eventually the boys went to school. Being 16 and needed at home, I would chivvy them off every morning, and clean and cook while they were gone. However, one afternoon, Niall came home in Liam’s arms, crying with fear, his trousers wet, clutching a sore and caned bottom. If one of them stole a brandy snap or something, I would generally give them a little tapping over my knee, and if I was particularly annoyed, and only then, would I fetch my ruler, and rap the poor boy’s bottom with it. But not for what Niall did. The poor boy hated to use the privy at school. Absolutely hated it, even if Liam went with him. Niall’s bladder was not strong, and he had had an accident right in the middle of his classroom, and the teacher had put the cane to his bottom three times. 

I took him out of Liam’s arms. Niall was only eleven. I carried him upstairs, into my bedroom, and undressed him. I sponged his legs down, and rubbed salve into his bottom, before giving him a nappy and pyjamas, and bringing him downstairs on my hip, my shawl around his back. 

It was then that Mother decided to come into the room, and saw the scene unfold. Instead of being cruel about Niall being on my hip, she served the other boys and called us both to her sitting room far after Niall’s bedtime. Niall was half asleep, clinging to my dress with one hand, one thumb in his mouth. I went up to Mother’s sitting room, Niall still on my hip. She invited us both in, and took Niall into her lap. She bounced him on her knee like you would a small child, and gently coaxed a story out of him. She was fuming. In fact, the school mistress was one of her friends, and she vowed to find the meaning of this, all the while feeding Niall a chocolate or two, and vowing to find a baby bottle so he could have his milk in bed. In my bed of course. Niall still slept there, he couldn’t sleep in his own bed. 

Mother insisted I keep him home the next day, and she would have the privy cleaned of spiders. She knew school would be too traumatic for him, and told me to have a day off kitchen duties, and see to Niall’s needs, and care for him.   
We spent the full day in bed. I had my story telling, and Niall told me about Ireland. For his lunch and supper, I fed him exactly as his mother did, mashed potatoes with butter and salt, and I added a little bacon to his lunch, but it made him poorly, so Mother declared him ill, and told me to take the next day off with him. After three days of a diet of buttered and salted potatoes, Niall was deemed well enough to go back to school and the teacher treated him with kindness. Liam stuck by him, although he was less scared of the privy now. 

Three years later, in 1942, Louis began to work for my mother on the farm. He lived in a little cottage nearby with his dog, and three years later his wife, Eleanor. Niall would still trudge out to see him after school, and Louis told me he would grumble about me coddling him, even though he still slept in my bed, liked to cuddle down under my shawl and watch me as I cooked for Liam, Niall and Harry. Zayn went abroad to fight, and came back with an American girl whom he settled down with and worked as much as he was able with an injured leg. He couldn’t fight anymore, and his wife coddled him as much as I used to. Liam and Niall grew together and had their boy-ish secrets, which Niall always told me, because if he didn’t he would feel guilty and cry. Liam knew that Niall told me everything, but Liam didn’t care. If there was something wrong with Liam, he knew he could come and mull it over on my lap with a mug of something hot and a slice of bread and butter. Same went for Harry. He was sure to work on the farm when he was older, and so was Liam. Niall… Mother told me that she would take me and Niall in under her wing, and let Niall dandle on my lap until he was at least twenty. Although, I would marry him, and he would become our butler, and he would simply serve at dinner parties. So when he was nineteen and I twenty four, we wed at the local church. 

We’re still in the little bedroom in the attic that I first brought him to that first night when he was eleven. He wore a nappy on our wedding night, and screamed when he saw a spider scuttle in the privy the next morning. He dandled under my shawl all the next day in bed, and I indulged his every whim and whimper.  
For me, it had always been Niall, and it always would be Niall, even when I became an auxiliary nurse for the Red Cross and served at the local hospital a few miles away. Niall would anxiously await my return with a smile on his face and his pyjamas on, when my shift ended late, and we would both climb in together. 

And you know what? Three decades later and he still climbs over me in the middle of the night to use the chamber pot even though we have a plumbed in toilet. Bloody typical man.


End file.
